1954 Chevrolet Corvette

When I say that if you sit out in front of Fat Dan's and Twenty Tap long enough, one of everything will drive by, I'm only half joking.

It's nearly impossible to distinguish among 1953, 1954, and 1955 Corvettes from a curbside perch, but statistically speaking it's most likely a '54.

See, there were only three hundred 1953 models built and only a couple hundred of those are still running around out there. The '55 only had a production run of, like, 700 units. Of the seven hundred 1955 'Vettes built, all but seven were V-8 cars, and the "Corvette" fender badge on this car lacks the large gold "V" indicating it has the 265 small block, so it's packing a Blue Flame inline six. Ergo, probably a '54.

The fiberglass body that became a Corvette trademark went from an expedient used to quickly translate a show car into a low production model to, by the second model year, a trademark of the Corvette's status as a futuristic and jet-age sports car for GM, and a halo vehicle for Chevy.

This '54 is in Polo White with a Sportsman Red interior, one of 3,230 so configured, making it easily the most common variant of the '53-'55 'Vettes. The 235 cubic inch Blue Flame inline-6 had three single-venturi sidedraft Carter carbs and put out 150 SAE gross horsepower (bumped to 155 with a mid-year camshaft change). The only transmission available was the 2-speed Powerglide automatic; supposedly no manual in Chevrolet's parts bin at the time that would handle the output would fit in the roadster, but it's more likely that it was simpler and cheaper to use the slushbox, plus Chevrolet chief engineer Ed Cole was a big fan of the then-new Powerglide.

Performance was...leisurely by modern standards. Road & Track managed an 11.0 second zero-to-sixty time and an eighteen second quarter with a trap speed in the mid 70s with their '54 test car. It had manual steering and un-boosted drum brakes and a primitive leaf-sprung live rear axle and it topped out at about 107mph, but compared to rolling Wurlitzers that dominated the Detroit scene at the time, it was small and nimble.

And still rolling, seventy years later.

This one was photographed in May of 2023 using a Nikon D800 and 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens.